Daredevil already covered this: the reason the recently-gentrified parts of NYC all went back to being like a 1980's Frank Miller comic is that the Chitauri invasion really fucked those neighborhoods up.

Yeah that's been particularly baffling. Ocksi is absolutely in love with the character of Iron Fist, but cannot figure out why they didn't (A) pick someone who is good at martial arts, or (B) have him wear the mask, so that they could use a multitude of different stunt actors to cover a multitude of different fighting styles, which is apparently his big thing in the comics.

I've been putting it on while I play Path of Exiles and having it run as background noise, and it works pretty good that way? Kind of an Arrow or The Flash kind of thing, where it's a nice show to pay attention to with exactly half your brain.

Eh, Finn Jones actually did do EXTENSIVE martial arts and fight training and does have a background(Though it is just boxing) in fight training. There are a few articles actors have done from the show, that state they were given only 10-15 minutes to prepare for/learn the choreography for fight scenes because the directors were more focused on the 'feeling' of the show and Danny's story of taking back his legacy and Rand Enterprises. Jessica Henwick(The woman who plays Colleen Wing) said she was given 10 minutes per scene to learn her fights for each cage match. It just seems like the production was annoyingly rushed. Like, as much as I think the show was flubbed I don't really know if I can blame the actors.

malikial wrote:Eh, Finn Jones actually did do EXTENSIVE martial arts and fight training and does have a background(Though it is just boxing) in fight training. There are a few articles actors have done from the show, that state they were given only 10-15 minutes to prepare for/learn the choreography for fight scenes because the directors were more focused on the 'feeling' of the show and Danny's story of taking back his legacy and Rand Enterprises. Jessica Henwick(The woman who plays Colleen Wing) said she was given 10 minutes per scene to learn her fights for each cage match. It just seems like the production was annoyingly rushed. Like, as much as I think the show was flubbed I don't really know if I can blame the actors.

These are problems that could have been avoided by hiring an actor who was already an experienced martial arts background. And who was a good actor. Finn Jones is neither, and it shows. The total garbage directing is only a part of why the show is a trainwreck.

What are you talking about? 3 weeks is literally 18-20 days more than most actors spend on learning the physical aspects of roles. That is why Keanu Reaves doing that shooting stuff was so noteworthy. Most acting prep is learning accents, which he did well. I mean, good directing can make so much shit better. In this show, Iron Fist episode 6 was directed by The RZA and it is reviewed at a solid 7.5-8 out of 10 and is being called an example of the show actually getting it right. I think Finn Jones is a pretty ok actor all things considered and I think that there were just some bad decisions made.

Also, I'm not saying that casting Finn Jones was not one of the mistakes the production made, I'm saying that he made the best of what he could out of a bad decision and that a better production team and a less hectic schedule could have made a better show with the same cast.

Well, yes. If any of a dozen number of people happened to display a level of competence above the baseline, the show might have been saved from general mediocrity. But none of them did and the dice fell and now Trump is president.

He's notably better at kicking ass a few episodes in, and as I huge Iron Fist comic fan, I'm more or less just enjoying seeing this part of his life, because IIRC in the comics it was, well, the fucking 70's and he was invented because everyone was kung-fu fighting, so they really didn't get in to it quite as much until much later.

By the time he's confronting The Hand properly, the action has picked up quite well, though it's not yet hit the watermark of Daredevil's The Raid hallway fight, and I don't really expect it to. However, Jones' portrayal of Danny Rand the guy is pretty spot on for the tone, and I hope by Defenders season 1 or Iron Fist season 2, whichever comes first, they'll have tightened up the action to the Netflix/Marvel standard.

I just finished watching it and Bal pretty much summed up my thoughts. The show was really rough at first and as a somewhat Iron Fist fan, it was incredibly frustrating to feel like it was plodding along while wanting it to be amazing. I expected the whole situation with Rand would only be a couple episodes rather than be a constant affair throughout the run when it didn't need to be, even if it DID resolve in a satisfactory way along with Danny's development.

About all I could ask for with a season 2 is to give Finn Jones a haircut, shave his face and get him even a partial costume so he has a distinctive appearance. Also build up the mythology of K'un-Lun and the Iron Fist with more than just passing, repeated mentions of what the wielder is supposed to do. And for Christ's sake, play up or at least acknowledge the superpowers (the severe downplaying of this throughout all the shows really annoys me).

Follow-up note, if Danny was good at using his powers, it'd be a real short show. On the street level scale (for the uninitiated, street level is a term used by comic book fans to refer to characters whose powers and/or activity keep them in contact with more or less common criminals and crime, insofar as the Kingpin is common. Guys with guns and criminal ambitions, and occasionally ninjas) Iron Fist is a pretty big gun. Of the four characters we have on this probably Defenders team so far, a fully powered Iron Fist could truck all of them. Only Daredevil has the background to put up a fight, but if he gets hit it's over.

That doesn't excuse his being pretty shit at kung fu, which given the nature of his powers he should be amazing at at all times, regardless of whether he can tap in to his deeper abilities.

It's fucking bananas that this is so good. The animation, the performances, everything is fantastic, and completely out of left field.

What really sold me on it were the little nods to the games, especially the cyclops/sypha fight which shows that it's not just some randos working on it but that they've got real fans who have played the games.

Bal wrote:It's fucking bananas that this is so good. The animation, the performances, everything is fantastic, and completely out of left field.

"Completely out of left field" is a strange, and yet entirely accurate, way to describe something that was first announced in 2006.

I wonder if they even rewrote Ellis's script, or just split it up from a movie into four episodes. They kept the goat part, which is the most "let's see if I can get away with this" Ellis-ism since that comic where he had Moon Knight rip off a guy's nipples. (Or...vice-versa, since he wrote this first.)

Where did the rumors that they'd scrapped the Castlevania 3 adaptation in favor of an all-new story with all-new Belmonts come from? I thought they came directly from Shankar but I can't find confirmation of that right now. I do love the idea that he straight-up lied just to troll the fans.

I also like that the use of "Tepes" as a surname. Lisa marries Dracula and she takes his name, the Impaler. You know, Mr. and Mrs. the Impaler, of the Wallachia the Impalers.

I'm two episodes in, and yeah, loving the little visual touches. She walks into the main hall and yup, that's the main hall from Castlevania all right, and there's Dracula and he's eight feet tall, and he does that thing where he sticks his arm out and lighting comes down.

It's been picked up for a second season. Wonder if they get Ellis back? I wonder if that Executive Producer credit comes with good money.

it is hilarious how EVERYTHING wrong death note gets. like even going in with rock bottom expectations it is astonishing just how not death note it is. even dafoe as ryuk is hard to enjoy!!

Honestly, it's more disappointing as an Adam Wingard movie than anything else; I've generally dug his stuff so far. And the last fifteen minutes of the movie hit both the synthy, neon John Carpenter circlejerk that I've come to like from him AND touches on some of the stupendously dumb but entertaining twisty BUT THEN I KNEW THIS WOULD HAPPEN stuff from Death Note proper, so it kinda starts becoming a thing .. and then it stops, because of course it does. The entire thing pretty much was unraveled from the get go with the decision to make Light such an unsympathetic little shit right off the bat, but then every other decision just kinda hammered home what a poor adaptation this was (and Ryuk's character assassination in the movie is probably even worse than Light's, frankly).

It's a shame too, because Lakeith's L would've been great in a better adaptation; easily the best part of the movie.

I really enjoy a good adaptation, or at the very least an interesting one; I want riffs and surprises if you're going to remake something that's already been done. But man, it just misses the mark every step of the way.